Path: shell.portal.com!svc.portal.com!sdd.hp.com!swrinde!newsfeed.internetmci.com!howland.reston.ans.net!nntp.crl.com!pacbell.com!amdahl.com!toad.com!tim From: tim@toad.com (Tim Maroney) Newsgroups: alt.pagan,alt.magick Subject: Re: Initiations Message-ID: <83207@toad.com> Date: 31 Jan 96 06:32:04 GMT References: <4dpu2a$u0@newshost.cyberramp.net> <1996Jan22.085119.19946@roper.uwyo.edu> Reply-To: tim@toad.com.UUCP (Tim Maroney) Organization: As Little As Possible Lines: 20 Xref: shell.portal.com alt.pagan:143382 alt.magick:65420 >>Being part of a coven and a tradition is about >>community and sharing, and the development of social >>skills enhanced by a spiritual opening that occurs >>in a proper initiation. I have observed, and sometimes participated in, a few initiatory groups. I don't see an increase in social skills when compared with people I meet in my professional life. There is an increase in social manipulation, but not in overall social skills. Other commen trends are grandiosity, histrionics, paranoid imaginings, and emotional instability, but the fundamental trend (derived from archaic apprenticeship relationships) is mostly about establishing clear lines of interpersonal control. This doesn't map well to the secular world, which is based more on Enlightenment ideals these days, and so there is often an inverse proportionality between ascension in the dominance-and-submission initiatory system and in the more freewheeling world at large. -- Tim Maroney. Please CC all public responses to tim@toad.com.